HIGH FASHION SEWINGSECRETS: From The World's Best Designers: Amazon.ca: Claire B. Shaeffer: Books

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If you want your notched collars to lie smoothly like Ellen Tracy's, your pants zippers to be as invisibly fused with the inseam pocket as Giorgio Armani's, and your topstitched facings to have the impeccable look of Chanel, this is the book to have. Home sewers need and want exactly the kind of painstaking construction tips that Claire B. Shaeffer provides. She not only tells you how to add designer details such as those mentioned above, but also how to copy any garment, alter a sleeve, change seams to darts or folds (or vice versa), and make a basic pattern. This is one of the best intermediate sewing guides on the market.

Review

"A surefire bible for any sewer who yearns to copy the high-priced couture garments seen at retail."--Victor Costa, Fashion Designer

"Serious sewing students have always looked to Claire Schaeffer's inside view of the industry as the link between ordinary home sewing and real professionalism. This book contains the information and techniques that we have been yearning for, asking for, and needing to evaluate the quality of our work."--Linda Lee, Owner of The Sewing Workshop, San Francisco, California

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Inside This Book (Learn More)
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First Sentence
Why use plain seams and traditional edge finishes on your garments when you can easily create high-fashion designer look-alikes? Read the first page

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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
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Average Customer Review

4.6 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars transformed me from a beginner to a confident sewer, Aug 11 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: HIGH FASHION SEWINGSECRETS: From The World's Best Designers (Hardcover)

I bought this book about 6 months ago and read it from cover to cover. I was fascinated, but I didn't want to write a review until I had actually tried some of the techniques.

Well, I've done the piped pockets, the bias cvered seams, and I'm working on the flounce collar (which happens to be fashionable again), and they look pretty good!!

But worth all the money, are the pages on manipulating patterns. With commercial patterns costing well over $10 today, this book enables you to play with what is already in your collection. Before this, I was a slave to the pattern companies, but now, I know how to make what I want. I eliminated a waist seam on a jumper for my daughter, and created an unusual skirt by combining two patterns.

My confidence in my ability to construct a garment, and have it look professional, has increased mani-fold.

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Hidden bonus: pattermaking basics and garment copying, Sep 26 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: HIGH FASHION SEWINGSECRETS: From The World's Best Designers (Hardcover)

The gimmick of the first two-thirds of this book is that the author shows various designer ready-to-wear garments with an interesting construction method or detail, and then she shows you, step-by-step and in detail, how to reproduce it. Where there is a trick or shortcut that reduces the time to do something without lowering the quality she uses it, but on the other hand she includes many labor-intensive methods where the quality would be improved by such methods. She covers facings, hem, pockets, trims, fasteners, and more. The book is not so comprehensive in the number of things it covers that it could replace a reference-style book, but where it covers something, it does so in detail (an you need to read closely sometimes). The illustrations are excellent--way above average for a sewing book. The really interesting thing about this book is the last third on patternmaking basics. She covers the three basic ways to copy a garment (measuring, tracing, and rub-off), and tells you how to check your copied pattern pieces against each other, how to true them, etc. She then goes into pattern modification techniques. I managed to copy a Land's End buttondown shirt with a certain amount of success following her instructions.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Really gives high-fashion sewing tricks - great book, Feb 23 2012

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louise - See all my reviews

This review is from: High Fashion Sewing Secrets from the World's Best Designers: A Step-By-Step Guide to Sewing Stylish Seams, Buttonholes, Pockets, Collars, Hems, And More (Paperback)

This book really does reveal high-fashion sewing secrets and shows how to achieve great results using simple description and images. I read through every page and it is now in my sewing room for easy referral. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to push their sewing to another level.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Haute Couture Anyone?
The book has so much detail. It is in easy to follow format. Some of the major headings are Fancy Construction Techniques, Fancy Details, Just Fancy, Behind the Seams, Make your... Read more

Published 16 months ago by Scheri

5.0 out of 5 stars I Love This Book!
Though an adequate seamstress, I've never known how to go to the next level. I do now! I don't know how I managed without it and don't plan to sew ANYTHING without it again. Read more

Published on Aug 31 2009 by Heather MacDonald